Rising Christian nationalism: a threat to us all

Dead babies aside, the thing about brothels in the Roman through to the Medieval times is that there was a whole group of women who weren't deemed worthy of any sort of protection at all. The Roman prostitutes were slaves. In Thomas Aquinus's time it wasn't just their health but their souls that was being put on the line. But, it was considered worth it because effectively some women needed to be sacrificed to men's needs. So for all there may have been pragmatic reasons for Aquinus's.and other religious thinker's emphasis on chastity - this piety required some women to be sacrificed. It's why I think Louise Perry is a bit blinkered. It's not that there aren't costs to the sexual Revolution and the sex work is empowering brigade. But the other extreme isn't any better and still results in the exploitation of women and children. And possibly the deaths of many babies.
I know it's only a book but it reminds me of the bit in the Handmaid's tale where she meets her old friend in a brothel. So in addition to women being trapped at home in incredibly restrictive moralities, other women are also trapped working as prostitutes. By the same regime.

If I remember correctly the last time a majority of people went to church in the UK was about 1850 and then it was nonconformists like the Methodists who had the numbers.

I suspect that if you inquire about the way people were treated in the workhouse, or by the soldiers barracked in the interval between the workhouse and the nuns, or the way the soldiers themselves were treated, you'll find that was fairly hard too. And that the nuns were as cold and badly fed as everyone else.

And as I said, the ratepayers and their representatives really resented having to finance the Home.

That's really awful, must have been very upsetting also to see that... ☹️

I appreciate that the conditions were very bad for everyone. What I was referring to me were reported cruel/uncaring behaviour from the nuns in Tuam & elsewhere.

There's lots of discussion now on MN & elsewhere about cruelty from midwives, pregnancy does seem to sometimes bring out cruel behaviour from others including other women... for multiple reasons probably, and obvs positions of power over the vulnerable are abused to some degree in probably all cases.

Yes,. Either way, as you say, there will be some kind of closure.

If there are babies buried on that site the archaeologists will find them.

My mother was in boarding school in Tuam in the 1940s - a farmer's daughter, related to the school doctor and a Canon in the church. The food was dreadful, several of the girls she shared a dormitory with got TB and were sent home to die. The country was desperately poor, and only began to prosper when they got good market prices supplying food to the UK during the war.

The Home children and their mothers did not have easy lives, but nor did anyone else.

That's a good contextual point that mortality would have been sadly high anyway, and ofc the council also bears guilt.

I have read a lot of evidence & accounts for poor care though. The long-term domestic at the Tuam home, Julia Devaney, was recording speaking about it & her reminiscences weren't very positive.

There's also several different people's accounts (including Devaney) of seeing a lot of babies buried there by the nuns.

Who knows? Maybe they'll find the skeletons on the site. Maybe the town council (who had responsibility) will find the lost burial registers and a plot somewhere in the town graveyard. 796 dead babies and children over 36 years, with undernourished mothers who could not be admitted to the home until late in their pregnancies (rules from the same town council, taking care of the ratepayers), at a time when TB was rife, and there were no antibiotics for most of the period.

Too many dead, but poverty is grim. At least the excavation will give us some answers.

So there were no 796 bodies? Really?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/25/a-stain-on-irelands-conscience-tuam-home-for-unmarried-mothers-gives-up-grimmest-of-buried-secrets

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwqnwrkd1go.amp

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/20/nx-s1-5467731/a-mass-grave-an-unwed-mothers-home-and-the-catholic-church-in-ireland

Are the witnesses lying/mistaken? And the other evidence wrong?

Better wait until the Tuam excavations have finished. So far, after two months, they have five workhouse-era skeletons and a lot of soup bones.

www.rte.ie/news/2025/1003/1536665-tuam-skeletal-remains/

It seems this idea is disputed. This 2010 blog debates a case where this was suggested.

https://ancientbodies.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/are-dead-babies-good-evidence-for-a-roman-brothel/

Thanks, good point. I have SOME time for Ms Perry, but I disagree with her on a lot of stuff.

I read that quote in an article she did, obvs based on that book.

I like Hollie mcNish's stuff, I might try messaging her on X to find out where she got this idea.

I'm sure Roman brothels forced infanticide but to that extent?
Besides the poor women were slaves. How much choice did they have..?

I know about Tuam, researching that rn. Vile nuns in that home.

I have seen this before. In Louise Perry's book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution she writes this twice, but she makes it sound as if this is what some archaeologists actually believe. Now it seems that the idea is something made up by a poet.

If you want to find babies bones there are plenty in the grounds of the Mother and Baby Homes such as the one in Tuam in County Galway. Pits of babies bones are connected to nuns more than to prostitutes.

I did think you were going to pick me up on that, but I did google "feminism" just to check before posting. It did say women not women and girls.

I don't believe that there are any sex-based issues around abortion other than when the abortion is performed because of the sex of the foetus.

If you have a problem with all abortion then be clear. I don't believe that the fact that some aborted foetuses are female is a feminist issue, any more than it is misandry to abort a foetus which happens to be male.

Obviously sex-specific abortion is horrific.

Women's rights don't extend to females under 18?

Give your head a wobble.

I thought women were adults?

For what it's worth that's kind of where I am. The key point being the rights of the woman remain the same so right up to birth her rights override that of the baby. So even by the very late stages her right for life should still be the priority. The whole of pregnancys a basically a liminal stage between not alive and alive human being.

Feminism is about women's rights, surely?

Absolutely, born and unborn.

Feminism is about women's rights, surely?

Killing babies is already illegal. No-one on this thread support killing babies.

The idea that for the purposes of abortion law we need a precise date of conception renders abortion law impossible.

It needs to be repealed, the killing of female babies is against feminist principles.

I did hesitate. I understand that my perspective is neither a female nor a feminist one, but I am surprised you seem to see it as "especially regressive". My previous post was mainly to make the point that is, I think, inherent in most western abortion law, that a zygote/foetus's value is usually in practice not seen as zero (no value) or one (the same value as a live baby). It is usually seen as something in between, with very little value in the first few days after conception (however that is defined) and increased value the more developed it becomes.

That concept does not depend on a perfect understanding or definition of conception. As previously mentioned, quickening and viability may be relevant. They certainly inform the mother's emotional attachment to the developing child. I have no doubt that late miscarriages and stillbirths are typically much more distressing than early miscarriages, which I am told may not always be noticed if very early. That distress partly reflects the mother's relationship with the child she is carrying.

My thoughts on this are as a father. My DW had a far closer pre-birth relationship with our children than I did. It was at birth (or maybe just before) that they became real to me; for my DW they were very real to her much earlier. Not at conception, which as you rightly say was not possible to pinpoint, though we had a pretty good idea.

When abortion law is formulated, it is practicality that matters more than precise definition of conception. I still maintain that this has parallels in death, for example with resuscitation of people whose heart and breathing have stopped, and with life support decisions. We have developed working definitions to help with ethical dilemmas. It is not generally seen as murder to fail to attempt to resuscitate someone who is not breathing and has no detectable pulse, but hospitals have protocols to manage their responsibilities and many people observe with horror "do not resuscitate" notices imposed on a patient.

The idea that for the purposes of abortion law we need a precise date of conception renders abortion law impossible. Only access to abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason would be possible, as no limit could be imposed by law.

A lot of what goes on in Joshua is very morally questionable.

Judith is definitely a heroine when she dresses up in her best clothes, jewellery and perfume, gets Holofernes firstly all excited and secondly drunk, and chops his head off.

Which is pretty death-y.

Well all the commandments which say certain crimes should get the death penalty.

And in the OT God orders the Istaelites to fight wars several times (Book of Joshua for one)

Which OT books would you say do that?